Samsung Not Releasing Its Ativ Tab Windows RT Device In the U.S

This is a really bad news for Windows RT Eco-system. Samsung has decided not to release its only Windows RT tablet Ativ Tab in US. Samsung indicated that modest response from retail for such products and a lot of investment needed to inform consumers about the benefits of Windows RT are the reason behind their decision.

There wasn’t really a very clear positioning of what Windows RT meant in the marketplace, what it stood for relative to Windows 8, that was being done in an effective manner to the consumer. When we did some tests and studies on how we could go to market with a Windows RT device, we determined there was a lot of heavy lifting we still needed to do to educate the customer on what Windows RT was. And that heavy lifting was going to require pretty heavy investment. When we added those two things up, the investments necessary to educate the consumer on the difference between RT and Windows 8, plus the modest feedback that we got regarding how successful could this be at retail from our retail partners, we decided maybe we ought to wait.

Mike Abary, the Samsung senior vice president also cited that they really didn’t hit right price points for their Windows RT device which he think is the biggest advantage over Intel CPU based devices.

“We didn’t necessarily attain the price point that we hoped to attain,” Abary said. “It’s not an issue on Microsoft’s side. It’s more an issue of how the product was built and some of the tradeoffs we had to incorporate in it.”

On the positive side, Samsung is still open to Windows RT devices and will continue development based on market response for current devices.